The Deaccession Singalong, Continued

No museum officials have sent me comments on my call for advance public notice of planned deaccessions by museums, but George Keyes, chief curator of the Detroit Institute of Arts, did tell me yesterday (at a DIA press lunch in New York) that he supports this idea.

Weighing in on the other side, David Ross, former director of the Whitney Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, gave these thoughts today in the "Comments" section of Jen Graves' post yesterday on the blog page of The Stranger:

As a former museum director, I would agree with Mimi Gates [director of the Seattle Art Museum] that transparency is always a good policy, whether in for profit or nonprofit educational institutions. The idea of announcing prospective deaccessions (and the curatorial rationale) is on the surface a good idea. But it is not that simple. We should not forget that there is a mechanism for community oversight of all museum activities---including acquisitions and deaccessioning---and that is its board of trustees. Trustees are accountable to the public for everything from a museum's financial health to its program and acquisition policies.

If a pattern of negligence appears, then it is the community's responsibility to challenge the trustees, but unless such a pattern is perceived, the community should take comfort (and be grateful) that a group of unpaid men and women are working hard to represent their collective interests on their behalf.

But David, there's are two problems with this "trust the trustees" philosophy: First, how is the public to discern "a pattern of negligence," if deaccession decisions are kept secret (especially in cases where works are sold privately, rather than at public auction)? And there are enough well documented instances where museum boards have not exercised "responsible oversight" to necessitate the additional checks and balances that would be provided through public disclosure.